


% JOHN B. WALLACE 


The Truth About the Japanese in California Told 
by a Former Newspaper Man IVho Has Lived 
in the State for Many Years and Who 
Is Now an Orange Grower in 
Southern California 


Reprinted From 

THE DEARBORN INDEPENDENT 

Mr. Henry Ford’s International Weekly 


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.« aving the Yellow 

in California 

By John B. Wallace 



This seems to re the open season for perils and menaces. With all the 
perils and menaces now threatening onr devoted country not from with¬ 
out but within, it certainly looks like rocky sailing for our Ship of State. 
A strange thing about these menaces and perils is that they seem to run 
to colors. Hardly has one of our Southern brethren been persuaded to 
resume his seat after declaiming the dreadful menace of the black when 
up pops a brother from the East or Middle West and raves about the 
red. And now out here on the Pacific Coast we have discovered a new 
peril. It’s a yellow one this time. And most appropriately it is the 
yellow press that has done the most to advertise this latest menace to 
our national peace and vegetable gardens. 

Another peculiar thing about these perils is that we have seemed to 
invite them upon ourselves. We throw our doors wide open, invite in 
the oppressed peoples of the world and then, after they have with great 
enthusiasm availed themselves of the invitation, we hastily cast about for 
means to kick them out. Of course we didn’t invite the Negroes to this 
country. We brought them over—rather forced our hospitality upon 
them, as it were. And the reds—we found one bunch of reds already 
in possession of the country. What we didn’t swap away from them 
with beads and bad whiskey, we took by force and then herded what 
reds had survived the whiskey and buckshot on to reservations. 


Perils and Perils. 

The reds who are causing us annoyance now were originally whites, 
but underfeeding and overtalking gave them their present complexion. 
Short rations and an indigestible mental diet are apt to have that effect. 

It is a comparatively easy thing to dispose of the black menace and 
the red peril. 

But our yellow peril out on the Pacific Coast is indeed a peril of 
another color. We are not dealing with ignorant Negroes or half-starved, 
half-baked theorists from darkest Europe. The Japanese are a race 
every whit as proud and sensitive as our own—a race that considers itself 
to be just as good if not better than any nation on earth. And what is 
more to the point it is a nation that is ready to back its claims with 
several million trained soldiers and a big fleet of modern warships. 

Once before we had an incipient yellow peril out on the Pacific Coast. 
A bunch of Chinamen had the nerve to think they could come to our 
land of the free and obtain a monopoly of the chop suey and laundry 
businesses. But we soon showed them where to head in, or rather where 
not to head in. 

Now to be frank it was only a short time ago that I discovered we had 

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this yellow peril in the form of the Japanese in our midst. As a matter 
of fact, the greater part of our three million more or less white residents 
of California was also in dense ignorance of the fact that we were living 
over a smouldering volcano. We had had a few slight earthquakes, it is 
true, but we had never laid them to the Japanese. The first intimation 
came last winter when it was discovered that one George Shima, the 
Japanese potato king, had what virtually amounted to a corner on 
potatoes. Mr. Shima, it was charged, was profiteering. Of course none 
of his white rivals among the commission men would descend to such 
tactics. They laid it on to Mr. Shima. At once our little brown brothers 
suffered a slump in popularity. And then to cap the climax, this spring 
the Japanese obtained a corner on the strawberries. No more nice berries 
at one nickel a box. Two for a quarter was the minimum. If it looked 
like a glut the Japanese would destroy a large quantity of berries and 
keep the price up. At least that is what they were accused of doing, 
although it was never proved and the district attorney’s office failed to 
prosecute. The price of everything else had aviated, but Californians 
demanded their inalienable rights. Strawberries always had been five 
cents a box. Down with the Japanese for daring to ask more! 

Then a few of our enterprising politicians discovered that their fences 
needed repairing. What better material could be found than the car¬ 
casses of the Japanese. They had no vote, so wham! on to them with 
both feet. 

Thus once more the yellow peril was brought to the fore after lying 
quiescent for a number of years while the Japanese Navy was policing 
our unprotected Pacific shores during the late unpleasantness and the 
local Japanese were supplying us with vegetables and fish. Our politi¬ 
cians were too busy then bringing our boys out of Siberia and the 
yellow press needed its space to apologize for and extenuate the depreda¬ 
tions of the Germans. 

Agitation against the immigration of the Japanese commenced in Cali¬ 
fornia back in 1906 and 1907 when Japanese laborers began coming into 
the country in such numbers as to constitute a real menace to the laboring 
men of the country, who at that time were finding it difficult to obtain 
jobs for themselves. 

The matter was taken up with the Federal Government in an attempt 
to have the immigration laws amended. The government, not wishing to 
appear to discriminate against the subjects of a powerful and friendly 
nation, entered into diplomatic negotiations with the Japanese Govern¬ 
ment and the so-called gentlemen’s agreement was drawn up. Under its 
terms the Japanese Government agreed to restrict the issuance of pass¬ 
ports to the United States to students, business men and farmers. 

After Japanese laborers had been thus excluded the state legislature 
of California passed a bill in 1913 forbidding Japanese to own agricul¬ 
tural land and limiting leases to a period of three years. This provision, 
of course, was only applicable to such Japanese as were ineligible to 
citizenship and did not affect the rights of Japanese born in the United 
States and therefore citizens per se. 

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An initiative petition has been prepared which would place a measure 
upon the ballot next fall that would practically prevent a Japanese from 
owning or leasing any agricultural land whatever in the state. 

This petition is being circulated at the time I am waiting this article 
and I do not know just what success it is having. Men who have leased 
large tracts to the Japanese have assured me that the proposed law is 
unconstitutional and that they do not fear it. 

California Oriental Exclusion League. 

Since the close of the World War the California Oriental Exclusion 
League and similar organizations have kept up a constant agitation 
against the Japanese. There was an attempt made by State Senator 
J. M. Inman, president of the league and one of the most active foes of 
the Japanese, and others to introduce anti-Japanese legislation at the last 
session of the legislature. Failing in this a determined attempt was 
made to induce Governor Stephens to call an extra session to consider 
such legislation. 

Governor Stephens remained deaf to appeals, however, but instead put 
the State Board of Control to work gathering statistics. These statistics, 
to which I will refer in detail later, evidently caused the governor to 
experience a change of heart, for soon after receiving them he indited a 
letter to Secretary of State Colby asking for Federal aid in solving the 
problem. 

Up to the present the State Department has taken no action upon the 
governor’s letter, but a congressional sub-committee on immigration and 
naturalization is now out on the coast taking testimony upon the question. 
This committee will continue its hearings until late in the fall. 

This, in brief, is the history of the legislative steps taken against the 
Japanese up to the present. 

After reading the newspaper articles and the statements of some of 
our senators and other near statesmen, I was prepared to find the citi¬ 
zens of California in a furor of excitement over a new invasion of the 
Pacific Coast by the Japanese. But careful and thorough investigation 
found them to be in a remarkable state of calmness, considering the dire 
predictions daily hurled at them. Perhaps living so close to a peril has 
inured them to a situation that Californian representative statesmen at 
Washington view with alarm. 

Reliable statistics have been hard to obtain. The figures furnished 
Governor Stephens by the State Board of Control are perhaps as nearly 
accurate as any. These have been gathered, I understand, largely from 
the Japanese consulates and correspond in many respects with figures 
furnished me by the Japanese themselves. The latter allege, however, 
that the Board of Control counted all the Japanese coming into the 
country but failed to allow for those returning to Japan. 

No Real Anti-Japanese Feeling. 

The Board of Control also included five thousand students at present 
at college in Japan. These latter are, therefore, not menacing us now, 
but constitute a reserve menace, as it were. 

That the people of California are not stirred to deeds of violence 
against the Japanese is not the fault of some of the agitators. Their 
entire appeal is based upon passion and prejudice. Justice and fairness 

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have no part in their creed. There is also a considerable number of 
patriotic men who sincerely believe that it is advisable to prevent further 
increase of the Japanese in this country but are willing to accord to them 
the undoubtedly excellent qualities that they as a nation possess. These 
men are not responsible for the fulminations of the yellow press. But 
there is a certain class of politicians who are ready to stir up race hatred 
and bring this country to the verge of a war to gratify their own 
ambitions. 

These men are only defeating their own ends. There is no wide-spread 
sentiment against the Japanese among the laboring class, the class most 
easily excited to riot. Their feeling as far as I have been able to learn 
by questioning men of various trades and crafts is largely one of indif¬ 
ference. The Japanese in this state are nearly all farmers. Instead of 
being in competition with labor they are supplying the laborers with 
food. Farm labor is so scarce that the small number of Oriental laborers, 
Japanese, Hindus or Chinese, can not fill the demand. 

Farmers Not Against the Japanese. 

Neither can I find any strong sentiment against the Japanese among 
the farmers themselves. There is some bitterness, it is true, evidenced 
by farmers who have been brought in direct competition with the Japa¬ 
nese, but even in the reports of the hearings before the immigration 
committee, as printed in the newspapers most strongly opposed to the 
Japanese, I find nearly as many farmers testifying for the Japanese as 
against them. 

Every banker to whom I have talked has had nothing but good words 
for the Japanese. Business men generally speak favorably of them and 
deplore the agitation against them. 

The greatest opposition to the Japanese seems to be in the northern 
part of the state. They have concentrated strongly in certain districts 
there, and in some cities such as Stockton and Sacramento there seems 
to be a decidedly bitter feeling. 

In Stockton especially, some of the citizens are so opposed to the Japa¬ 
nese that they refused to appear before the immigration committee and 
testify because the committee had visited the immense ranch of George 
Shima who reclaimed the river delta lands. 

They overlooked the fact that an investigating committee is supposed 
to investigate both sides of a question. Such prejudice, however, is not 
common, and there has been a disposition among both those opposed to 
the Japanese and the Japanese themselves to give the committee all the 
aid in their power in uncovering the real truth of the situation. 

I have lived upon the Pacific Coast for thirty-odd years. During that 
period I have had considerable dealings with the Japanese, both as a 
newspaper man and an orange grower. I have known them as house 
servants, as railroad laborers, as orange pickers, as business men, as 
farmers, and during my college days as fellow students. I have found 
them to average just about the same as any other nationality. I have 
known good ones, bad ones and indifferent ones. 

Japanese Comparable to Germans and Swedes. 

As desirable immigrants, I would class them with the Germans and 
Swedes except for the fact that their Asiatic race prevents them from 
becoming easily assimilated. 


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They are industrious, thrifty, cleanly and honest. There is no class 
of immigrants that adopts American customs more quickly than the 
Japanese. A Chinaman may live in this country for a lifetime but he 
still clings to the dress and habits of his native land. But from the 
moment a Japanese lands in this country he begins to pick up our ways. 
It is this habit of his, in picking up our ways, that has made him unfavor¬ 
able with the houswives in California. Since he has obtained control of 
the berry and vegetable markets he has been suspected and, I fear, 
justly suspected of profiteering. Anyhow he has carried cooperation to 
the nth degree and I’ll confess has aroused a feeling of envy among 
farmers and fruit growers who thought they had a corner on the co¬ 
operative principle. 

The Japanese are law abiding. As a newspaper reporter I worked 
around police headquarters in several of the larger northwestern cities 
and I can not recall ever having seen or heard of a Japanese being 
booked for theft or burglary. We have had them in for gambling and 
fighting among themselves and occasionally for intoxication, but they 
seem to have an innate respect for property rights. 

Absurd Complaints Against the Japanese. 

I have heard it charged that they are cunning and deceitful and were 
guilty of sharp practice. In some individual instances I have found 
this to be true, but no more so than any other race that comes to a for¬ 
eign country and is made the prey of every sharper and crook. In 
nearly every instance where it has been charged that the Japanese at¬ 
tempted to take advantage in a business deal I have found that the man 
who made the complaint had simply been beaten at his own game. The 
Japanese are shrewd and when they are in doubt they go to a white 
lawyer. I believe that anyone who deals honestly and fairly with the 
Japanese will receive the same treatment. At least that has been my 
own experience with them. Much of the prejudice against them I have 
found to be due to ignorance and racial distrust. You will find the same 
feeling against any class of foreigners whose language and customs are 
different from ours. 

Up in the state of Washington the Japanese have been accused of 
indulging in that noble indoor sport of bootlegging. This may be true. 
Our liquor laws appeal neither to our foreign-born population nor, it 
might be added, to a considerable portion of native-born residents. Boot¬ 
legging out on the coast is not a business that is monopolized by any 
particular race. In one of the principal cities of the northwest the 
mayor and a number of the higher police officials were indicted for com¬ 
plicity in the same sort of an offense. With such examples of citizenship 
is it small wonder that the Japanese try to break into the game while 
the getting is good ? 

Health inspectors have had some trouble with Japanese regarding the 
covering of perishables on sale at the public markets, and there have been 
complaints made regarding sanitation at their homes on farms and leased 
lands. The charge against the stall keepers is undoubtedly true, but 
the same difficulty has been experienced with other races as well as with 
native-born American citizens. They dislike to keep their wares covered 
because it renders them less attractive to the public and this law is 
evaded whenever possible. 


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I was surprised, however, to hear that the home surroundings of the 
Japanese were insanitary. This has been contrary to my experience, as 
I have always found the Japanese as a race exceptionally cleanly about 
their persons and surroundings, comparing favorably in this respect 
with any other class of foreign immigrants. Such farmhouses as I have 
visited, while rather bare and meagerly furnished, were scrupulously 
clean. 

Alleged Evasion of the Gentlemen’s Agreement. 

The most serious charge made against the Japanese is that they are 
violating the so-called gentlemen’s agreement. In Governor Stephens’ 
letter to Secretary Colby he does not directly charge the Japanese Gov¬ 
ernment with bad faith in this matter, but he leaves it to be inferred 
that the Japanese officials are not ignorant of what is taking place. 

The main basis for the charge is the fact that, if the governor’s figures 
are correct, the Japanese population in California has increased more 
than one hundred per cent during the past ten years. The 1910 census 
showed a population of 41,356. The figures gathered by the State Board 
of Control now show a Japanese population in California of 87,279. Of 
this number 5,000 are said to be in school in Japan. The Japanese asso¬ 
ciations, organizations formed by the Japanese to promote the Americani¬ 
zation of the resident Japanese, assert that the Board of Control has 
overestimated the number of Japanese in California by at least ten 
thousand. The census figures when released will settle this argument. 

The figures compiled by the Board of Control show a total of 20,331 
births among the Japanese resident in California during the ten-year 
period. The Japanese are great admirers of the late Theodore Roosevelt, 
and evidently took his admonitions respecting the desirability of large 
families to heart. They find, however, that there is no pleasing their 
critics and by following the advice of the greatest of Americans they 
have only succeeded in getting themselves in deeper waters. 

The figures of the State Board of Control place the number of Japa¬ 
nese immigrants to this country since 1910 at 25,592. Of these 5,749 
are said to be “picture brides.” 

These so-called picture brides are Japanese women who are betrothed 
while still in their native country to Japanese men in this country 
through an exchange of photographs. The scheme was adopted to give 
the young Japanese in the United States an opportunity to get married 
to women of their own race. It is patterned after our well-known matri¬ 
monial agencies, although it must be said that these marriages turn out 
much better than those in this country conducted under similar auspices. 

The entrance of picture brides has been permitted by our immigration 
service under the terms of the gentlemen’s agreement, which allowed a 
Japanese to obtain a passport “to resume an acquired domicile, to join 
a parent, wife or child residing in the United States. ’ ’ 

Because of complaints against this practice the Japanese Government 
some six months ago revoked permission for unmarried Japanese women 
to come to this country. A number of passports issued before the order 
of revocation are still good but as soon as these are used no more picture 
brides will be allowed to emigrate, and unmarried Japanese on this side 
of the water will be compelled to take white brides or wait until the 
present generation of Japanese girls in this country grows up. 

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Evasions of the gentlemen’s agreement charged by Governor Stephens 
are the bringing in of farm laborers under the guise of farmers and of 
dependents. Under the terms by which Japanese are permitted to lease 
land this seems to be a distinction without a difference. 

Practically all land cultivated by the Japanese in this state with the 
exception of a very small portion that is actually owned by the Japanese 
or their children is leased to them by the white owners who find that they 
can get more in rentals than they could by working the land themselves. 
The land is usually subleased by the lessee to a number of his country¬ 
men who either work it on contract or cooperatively. Whether these men 
are called farmers or farm laborers is largely a matter of terminology. 

Another class of what might be called farm laborers is the orange and 
lemon pickers and pruners employed in the citrus districts of Southern 
California. Speaking as an orange grower, I will say we were mighty 
glad to get these Japanese laborers during the war when it was practi¬ 
cally impossible to obtain men to pick our fruit and work our orchards. 
There was nothing said about menaces or yellow perils in those days. 

It is also charged that a great many Japanese have been smuggled 
across the border from Mexico. Influential men among the Japanese 
admit that some of their countrymen have come into this country in that 
manner, but they say the number is very small. They tell me that 
there are very few Japanese in Mexico at the present time, and that those 
who are there are making just as much money as their countrymen in 
the United States and therefore have no inducement to drift across the 
border. 

The fact remains, however, that owing to the large stretch of border 
practically unguarded it is comparatively easy for aliens to pass back 
and forth. Federal inspectors are constantly on the alert and many who 
have illegally crossed have been detected and deported. 

No Real Menace. 

It is difficult for the average citizen to work himself into a frenzy of 
alarm over the danger of less than 100,000 Japanese crowding out a 
population of some three million Caucasians, but when the yellow press 
assures him that these alien residents have acquired control of practically 
all the good land in the state he begins to sit up and take notice. 

Let us see how the facts as contained in the report of the State Board 
of Control bear out these ominous predictions. The total land area of 
California is given at 99,617,280 acres. We will eliminate the greater 
part of this vast territory and only consider the farm lands, of which it 
is alleged that the Japanese have obtained control. The total acreage of 
farm lands in the state is 27,931,444 acres. 

Of this amount the Japanese own, or are purchasing on contract, 
74,769 acres and have under lease from the white owners 383,287 acres, 
or a total under their control of 458,056 acres. In other words, less than 
two per cent of the farm lands of California is being farmed by the Japa¬ 
nese and all but 74,769 acres is under three-year leases that may be can¬ 
celed when terminated, at the owners’ option. 

Thus it may be seen that the white residents of California still have a 
fairly good grip on their farm lands, possessing some 27,473,388 acres, 

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with 383,287 more that they can take away from the Japanese any time 
the notion strikes them. 

It is true that the Japanese have under control some of the best land 
in the state. A good portion of their farming is devoted to truck gar¬ 
dening, which requires rich land. The Japanese, because of their squat 
stature and unremitting industry, make ideal truck gardeners. This 
form of farming does not come naturally to the native American. We 
are as a race too tall for this back-breaking work, and we haven’t the 
patience that it requires to be a successful gardener on a large scale. 
The greater portion of garden truck in the United States is raised by our 
immigrants and of all immigrants the Japanese, because of the qualities 
I have mentioned, is the most successful. 

Ridiculous Charges. 

One of the most ridiculous arguments against the Japanese is the 
charge that they exhaust the soil on leased lands. Anyone who knows 
anything at all about gardening knows that to be profitable it requires 
constant and most heavy fertilization. Even if the leasors of the land 
were so lacking in business acumen as to allow their land to be depleted 
it would not pay the Japanese themselves. One reason that barnyard 
manures are so scarce and high is the demand for them from the Japa¬ 
nese truck gardeners. The Japanese are also heavy users of commercial 
fertilizers, especially fish scraps, the value of which they were among 
the first to recognize. 

An argument which their opponents in California use among the 
workingmen to excite prejudice against the Japanese is that they work 
long hours and on Sundays. Both these statements are facts. Show 
me a successful farmer, white, black or yellow, who does not work long 
hours. Nature is not constructed on an eight-hour schedule. The farmer 
must make hay while the sun shines. Even the proletarian govern¬ 
ment of Russia recognizes that fact. 

The Japanese themselves were the first to recognize the fact that unless 
they wished to become extremely unpopular with the working classes in 
this country they would be compelled to demand higher wages and work 
shorter hours than they had been accustomed to in their own country. 

The first immigrants to come to this country were employed on the 
railroads as section-hands and in other forms of labor where gangs could 
be employed. Students coming to the United States took positions as 
domestic servants in order more quickly to learn our language and cus¬ 
toms. The Japanese are proud, but they have none of that quality, only 
too common among our younger generation, known as false pride. Their 
philosophy has long embraced the Christian principle of service. 

The agitation in 1906 and 1907 that led to the adoption of the gentle¬ 
men’s agreement convinced the Japanese that they were adopting the 
wrong method by attempting to compete with American labor. They, 
therefore, sought for undeveloped fields of industry where they would 
not incur disfavor. They found this in farming and fishing. 

Japanese Farmers in Northern California. 

There are five well-defined districts in California where the Japanese 
have gained some ascendency in farming over the white population. 

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The first district is in the northern part of the state in Glenn, Colusa 
and Butte counties. This is the great rice-growing district of the state 
and it is to the Japanese that the credit should go for developing this 
great industry of the Sacramento Valley. They were not the first to 
try rice growing in California, but it is undisputed that they were the 
first to make it a commercial success. 

These rice fields have been developed from practically worthless land 
that would not bring an average of ten dollars an acre. Now, thanks 
to the perserverance of the Japanese who stuck to the growing of rice in 
the face of yearly losses, this land is now worth $100 an acre and rents 
from $35 to $45 an acre a year. The Japanese claim no credit for 
superior skill in growing rice, but admit that they owe their success to 
following the methods advised by the United States Government experi¬ 
mental stations. Encouraged by the success of the Japanese the white 
farmers again took up rice growing, after having practically abandoned 
the field to the Orientals, and now outnumber them, having 107,000 acres 
to the Japanese 33,000. 

This is what has occurred in practically every branch of farming 
industry in which the Japanese have assumed a dominating position. 
They have taken up industries and land abandoned by the white popula¬ 
tion and made a success of them. It is these very men who have failed 
where the Japanese have succeeded who are making the biggest outcry 
against them. 

The second district where the Japanese have obtained a strong foot¬ 
hold is in sections of San Joaquin, Sacramento, Solano, Yolo, Sutter and 
Placer counties, where they raise asparagus, vegetables, fruits, and 
grapes. There they have reclaimed thousands of acres along the Sacra¬ 
mento and San Joaquin rivers from swamp and tule beds and have 
converted great stretches of semi-desert land where nothing was raised 
except scant crops of hay into orchard and garden areas. 

The third district occupied by the Japanese to some extent is in Fresno, 
Kings and Tulare counties. Here they took what was considered prac¬ 
tically worthless clay lands and made them into the richest vineyards of 
the state. They planted vineyards and orchards in pure sand and made 
them bear and they extended the citrus district north into Tulare 
County, changing sheep pasture into land worth a thousand dollars 
an acre. 

Japanese Farmers in Southern California. 

The fourth district, in Los Angeles and Orange counties, was already 
developed, especially the citrus districts, where the Japanese have never 
been able to obtain a foothold. Thy have rendered invaluable service 
here, however, as pickers and pruners in the orange groves, sharing the 
bulk of this work with the Mexicans and a scattering of Hindus. It is as 
truck gardeners that they have prospered in Los Angeles County, where 
they keep the city of Los Angeles supplied with fresh garden truck the 
year round. Even in this industry there has been no tendency to crowd 
out the white farmers. Out of the 418,998 acres of land under cultiva¬ 
tion in Los Angeles County the Japanese have under lease only 40,000 
acres and own but a scant 2,500 acres. The fact that they produce more 

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than the white farmers is because they farm more intensively, not because 
they own more land. 

The fifth district occupied to some extent by Japanese is in Imperial 
County, where they have braved the intense heat of the Imperial Valley 
and gone extensively into the raising of cantaloupes and vegetables. 
Here they have also to a great extent pioneered. The white owners of 
the land, unable to get labor who could stand the heat of the valley, have 
been glad to lease their lands at large rentals to the Japanese. 

What the Japanese Farmers Produce. 

Last year, 1919, the cry was underproduction. This was given as the 
main reason for the well-known high cost of living. “Our workers are 
slacking on their jobs” was the universal complaint. Let us see what 
these Japanese whom we would now unceremoniously boot out of Cali¬ 
fornia did for us in the line of production. The total value of the food 
products raised by them in California is given at $67,145,730. 

This sum was divided among the following products: 

Berries, $3,629,400; celery, $1,105,400; asparagus, $1,804,860; seeds 
and nursery stock, $3,369,400; onions, $3,459,050; tomatoes, $1,068,660; 
sugar beets, $4,800,360; cantaloupes, $2,822,150; green vegetables, $10,- 
997,000; potatoes, $5,298,900; hops, $743,400; grapes, $8,136,900; beans, 
$2,525,000; fruits and nuts, $8,457,400; hay, grain and corn, $2,611,100; 
rice, $3,600,000; cotton, $1,950,000; miscellaneous products, $766,750. 

In California the cost of living, especially in food products has always 
ranged considerably lower than in eastern states, largely because green 
vegetables and garden truck have been obtainable the year round. How 
much of this we owe to the Japanese the table plainly reveals. 

The Pot and the Kettle. 

These politicians who now profess such great solicitude for the Cali¬ 
fornia farmers and wish to protect them from the deadly Japanese were 
being fed during the war by these same Japanese whom, by means of 
the anti-leasing law, they wish to exclude from the soil altogether. They 
argue that if the Japanese had not- been here then the lands would have 
been occupied by the white farmers, but this leads to the natural question, 
What were the w T hite farmers doing that they let the Japanese get in on 
the land ? This land was available here in California to the white farmer 
fifty years before the Japanese ever thought of coming to America. 

Some of these same politicians who are now holding up their hands in 
holy horror, because Japan is hankering after a slice of China and Korea 
and is sending over a few thousands of her best citizens to California 
to teach us those doctrines of thrift and industry which Benjamin Frank¬ 
lin preached when our nation was born, are the very ones who have been 
urging the government to send our soldiers—these same “our boys” 
over whom they shed crocodile tears when they were sent to Siberia—to 
clean up Mexico. Of course, this was for Mexico’s own good, but the 
Japanese say the same thing about China. I am not defending Japan’s 
course with China. I sincerely hope that the other nations will bring 
her to see the error of her ways, but why should the pot call the kettle 
black ? 


( 11 ) 


We must not forget that Japan was isolated for centuries and was 
perfectly content in that isolation until we sent a fleet over there and 
awoke her. The Japanese have proved to be good imitators and in their 
national policy they have only imitated the so-called civilized nations of 
the world whose motto has ever been “to git while the gittin’ was good.” 

Japanese Fishing. 

Another charge made against the Japanese is that they have gained a 
monopoly of the fishing industry off the coast of California. Taking the 
records of the state game and fish commission we find that in 1919-20 
there are 1,316 Japanese engaged as fishermen out of a total of all nation¬ 
alities of 4,671, or twenty-eight per cent. The number of fishing boats 
operated by them is given as 355 against a total of 796 engaged in the 
industry. 

There are several arguments advanced against allowing the Japanese 
to engage in the fishing industry, but the only two worthy of serious 
consideration are whether it is wise to allow an alien race to obtain con¬ 
trol of an important food supply, and whether in case of war these aliens 
would not be able to furnish valuable information to an enemy. 

As to the first contention, I can see nothing more serious than perhaps 
some inconvenience for a time should difficulty arise with the Japanese 
fishermen. The sea is open to all and fishing is not such a difficult voca¬ 
tion nor Americans so helpless that they could not take over the fishing 
fleet and operate it successfully should necessity arise. 

It may be said also to the credit of the Japanese fishermen that they 
are more law-abiding and live up to the fishing regulations better than 
the other aliens engaged in that industry off the coast of California. 

Just the other day the yellow press came out with big headlines accus¬ 
ing the Japanese of violating the fishing laws in regard to the three-mile 
limit and asserted that they were openly defying the authorities and had 
fired on the wardens. As a matter of fact it was not the Japanese fisher¬ 
men at all, but Austrians who were rebelling against the government, 
and instead of breaking the rules the Japanese were actually assisting 
in enforcing them. Most of the other newspapers acknowledged their 
mistake, but if the yellow press showed any tendency to set the public 
right I failed to notice it. 

Unfairness of California Papers. 

I have noticed this unfairness in nearly all California papers, espe¬ 
cially in the reports of the hearings before the immigration committee. 

They have universally adopted the old trick of playing up in the head¬ 
lines all testimony unfavorable to the Japanese while burying in the body 
of the article the testimony in their favor. In publishing the report of 
the Board of Control they selected and played up only the facts that 
militated against the Japanese, although the report comprehensively em¬ 
braced a mass of testimony in their favor. Such a course when pursued 
by practically every newspaper in the state is bound to arouse prejudice 
and racial feeling against the Japanese, especially among those who have 
no personal acquaintance among them. 

The argument against the Japanese being allowed to learn the secrets 
of coast defense is a valid one, but it should not apply to the Japanese 

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alone. There are nearly two thousand other aliens engaged in fishing 
off the coast of California, including Italians, Austrians, Germans, Por¬ 
tuguese, Spaniards, Greeks, Danes, Chinese, Swedes, Norwegians, Finns, 
English, Russians, Canadians, French, and Mexicans. American fisher¬ 
men number only a few over a thousand. 

I do not believe that anyone except American citizens should be 
allowed in coastwise trade or fishing. The experience of England has 
shown us the value of these boats for patrol duty and they should be 
manned by sailors who can be depended upon to do their duty by their 
country. 

Japanese Stock in Land-Owning Corporations. 

The Japanese are charged, and justly so, with evading the statute 
designed to prevent them from owning land. They do this with the 
assistance of white lawyers who aid them in forming corporations of 
which there are now some four hundred in the state. 

To comply with the law the majority of the stock in these corporations 
is issued in the name of an American citizen or citizens who act as 
trustees, although the business of the corporations is really transacted 
by the aliens. Lately it has been a favorite device of the Japanese to 
issue this controlling stock to his American-born children and then act 
as their guardian. The courts have recently taken judicial notice of 
these practices and have refused to sanction them. 

These practices are undoubtedly plain evasions of the law and most 
reprehensible, but it must be remembered that they could not occur with¬ 
out the connivance of American lawyers. When one notes the daily 
formation of blue-sky corporations organized by Americans for no other 
purpose than to fleece the public, he finds it hard to censure the Japa¬ 
nese for attempting to form corporations for the pursuit of legitimate 
business. 

Japanese Business Honesty. 

The charge often made denying the honesty of the Japanese in business 
transactions is disproved by the fact that their operations are much more 
readily financed by the banks than those of white men and citizens con¬ 
ducting similar businesses. This is admitted by the anti-Japanese agi¬ 
tators themselves, and is used by them as an argument against the 
Japanese. 

All business men know how hard it is for a man with a shady reputa¬ 
tion to obtain credit or money from business houses and banks, yet the 
Japanese have no difficulty in obtaining either and they number the 
bankers and financiers as among their best friends. 

On page 79 of the report of the State Board of Control there is the 
following paragraph: 

“Farm advisers and others complain that American farmers, lessees 
and intended growers are not so liberally financed by the interests above 
mentioned (commission houses, canneries, packers, beet sugar factories, 
bankers, etc.) as are the Orientals, especially the Japanese. Difficulty in 
securing funds for working capital is eliminating the Americans from 
competition with the Japanese.” 

This is a sad commentary upon the thrift, industry, initiative and 
honesty of the Americans who are competing with the Japanese. Banks 

(13) 


and business houses are not conducting operations for their health. 
They loan money or extend credit only to those who they have reason to 
believe will make good. 

The Way to Settle This Trouble. 

So much for the economic situation regarding the Japanese in Cali¬ 
fornia. There is not the slightest doubt in the mind of any thinking 
person that unrestricted immigration of the Japanese or any other for¬ 
eign race would create a serious situation in this country. But that such 
a situation should arise under the workings of the present treaty with 
Japan would require a most pessimistic imagination. That there have 
been abuses of this treaty is undeniably true, but they have been abuses 
by individual Japanese and not by the government. The government of 
Japan can not guarantee the honor of all of its citizens any more than 
could the government of the United States. Most Japanese in the United 
States are just as desirous of correcting these abuses as we are and there 
is no doubt in my mind that they will be corrected if handled through 
diplomatic channels. 

Matters certainly can never be amicably or satisfactorily adjusted if 
the bellicose, unfair and unequitable methods pursued by many of the 
anti-Japanese agitators in this state are continued. I have too much 
faith in the genius and energy of the American people to be willing to 
believe that they can be crowded out of any industry in which they really 
wish to attain success. The Japanese themselves recognized the fact that 
they had no chance for competition in anything but certain lines where 
there was opportunity for all, and Americans had not chosen to avail 
themselves of the opportunity. I have failed to find one American farmer 
in California who has suffered from the competition of the Japanese, 
but I have found a number who have failed through their own lack of 
foresight or industry and then blamed it upon the Japanese. And an¬ 
other thing, disabuse your mind of any idea that all the Japanese are 
successful. They have just as large a proportion of failures as our native 
farmers. Mr. Sho Inouye, president of the Japanese Daily News, of 
Los Angeles, who has since become wealthy in the importing business, 
told me that he made a flat failure when he tried farming and nearly 
went broke in the Imperial Valley. Not all Japanese are successful 
farmers, business men or fishermen. 

No Fear of Japanese Monopoly. 

No one hundred thousand nor five hundred thousand Japanese are 
going to monopolize any industry in this state unless our citizens are 
willing that they do so. The argument of lower standards of living falls 
flat before the fact, which opponents of the Japanese themselves admit, 
that the Japanese demand and get higher wages than other classes of 
labor in the same field. The average Japanese may live on simpler food 
than the American, but when it comes to other things he insists on the 
best. There is no more liberal spender than a Japanese youth. 

Like practically all foreigners, it takes only a few years of life in 
• America to raise their standard of living to a point equal to if not in 
excess of that maintained by native Americans. Compare the meals of 
the average prosperous immigrant, for instance, with the table set by our 

(14) 


frugal New Englanders or a certain class of farmers in the Middle West 
and South. This standard of living bugaboo is all a myth. Men, 
whether Oriental or Occidental, acquire material comforts just as rapidly 
as their purse will permit them. 

The Japanese immigrants who have come to this country are young 
men who come here because they think they can better their condition. 
You may rest assured that they are not going backward but forward, 
and this applies to spiritual as well as material things. It is a mighty 
poor brand of civilization that America teaches if it will fall before the 
Oriental idea. The Japanese are an intensely practical people and they 
are not only adopting our customs and habits, but are gradually absorb¬ 
ing our idealistic philosophy, a philosophy whose idealism we endeavor 
to hide even from ourselves. But they recognize it as a practical philos¬ 
ophy and as such it appeals to them. If at any time in the past they 
were disposed to emulate the German idea of kultur that time has now 
passed, because Germany has made a failure while, on the other hand, 
we are left the most powerful nation on the globe. No race as intelligent 
as the Japanese is going to imitate a failure. The military caste that 
once ruled Japan is daily losing its grip and, it might be added, no small 
part of its slipping is due to the missionary work of Californian 
Japanese. 

Naturalize the Japanese. 

Granting that it would not be wise or practicable to add materially to 
the Japanese population now in California, the question arises as to what 
we are going to do with those already here. The position of a Japanese 
in this country is an anomalous one. We deny him the right of citizen¬ 
ship, and then point to him as a menace because he is still a subject of 
the mikado. Some day we are going to have a number of Japanese 
citizens who are native-born. There are 21,611 minor children of Japa¬ 
nese in California today with 5,000 more attending universities in Japan. 
These children become citizens of this country when of age, unless they 
renounce allegiance. 

Much ado is being made over the fact that the Japanese Government 
considers the children of its subjects, although born in a foreign country, 
still to be subject to the nation of their parents. So do other foreign 
countries, and for that matter a child of a citizen of the United States 
does not lose his citizenship because he is born abroad. 

These Japanese children plainly have the right to expatriate them¬ 
selves. Section Two of Part A of the Japanese Law of Expatriation 
states, “When a Japanese subject obtains of his or her own accord the 
right of citizenship or subjectship of a foreign nation, he or she is 
expatriated.” 

Thus it can be seen that if the parents of these American-born children 
were allowed to become citizens it would not even be necessary for these 
children to expatriate themselves. I have not talked to one Japanese 
in this country who professed a desire ever to reside permanently again 
in Japan. They like our climate, our way of living and doing business, 
and they are willing to adopt our form of government and become loyal 
citizens. 


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LIBRARY OF CONG 



RESS 



0 019 300 972 4 


After a careful study of the question based upon personal knowledge 
and facts compiled from reliable sources, I have reached the conclusion 
that there is only one serious obstacle to Japanese immigration—that is 
the matter of assimilation. A small leaven of unassimilated Japanese 
can do no harm to this country; in fact, they can be of distinct benefit, 
but they never could be allowed to come here in the numbers permitted 
persons of the Caucasian race. We are evolving a new race in this 
country, but in this great melting pot Asiatics and Negroes will not fuse. 


The Remedy. 

There is, in my opinion, a very simple remedy for the so-called Japa¬ 
nese problem in California. I believe that those Japanese who are now 
here should be granted citizenship if they wish it. Otherwise they should 
be deported. We want no aliens in this country, with the exception of 
visitors and students, who do not intend to remain as loyal citizens. 

The question of further immigration should be settled through diplo¬ 
matic channels. The present agreement, salving as it does the Japanese 
pride, is all right but it needs some amending. The burden of proof, 
if a Japanese is caught illegally in this country, is now upon the govern¬ 
ment. It should be the other way. The Japanese should be compelled 
to prove their right to be here, as the Chinese are. 

Any Japanese lawfully in this country who assists in smuggling or 
concealing smuggled Japanese should be deported. Test of the sincerity 
of the Japanese Government could be made easily by the suggestion of 
these two measures by our State Department. The incorporation of them 
into the treaty would stop effectually the illegal entry of Japanese into 
this country. 

The enactment of the initiative petition, now being circulated, into law 
which would prohibit the leasing of land to Japanese would, in my judg¬ 
ment, be an unwise move on the part of the citizens of California. 

In the first place it would serve no purpose except to inflame public 
sentiment in Japan against the United States and make it harder for the 
State Department to make an amicable adjustment of the present diffi¬ 
culties. The law, even if passed, in accordance with Governor Stephens’ 
own admission in his letter to Secretary Colby, would not affect the Japa¬ 
nese control of agricultural holdings, as it could easily be evaded through 
personal employment contracts. 

There never was a time in the history of our nation when it was more 
desirable that we remain on terms of peace and friendship with other 
nations than the present, when we have so many pressing economic ques¬ 
tions to settle. It would be nothing short of a crime if we should be 
brought into conflict with Japan through the mouthings of a few self- 
seeking politicians and yellow newspapers over a matter that could be 
settled in a few hours’ friendly conference between level-headed repre¬ 
sentatives of both nations. 


( 16 ) 










